by M. E. Parker
Ethan opened his wallet and pulled out a black American Express and tossed it on the desk. She looked down at it and whispered, “Let me see if our designer is available to speak with you.”
The guy that came out turned out to be super cool, he didn’t bat an eye when we told him what we wanted. He seemed excited about the prospect of making it. He showed us some stones and then asked if we wanted to wait for an estimate and Ethan just gave the guy his cell number and told him to call. When we left the store, I couldn’t help but think that the ring was going to be way out of our price range. I didn’t know much about rings, but when Ethan started talking about platinum and 2-3 karat diamonds, I knew it was going to be expensive. I didn’t care though, Janie was worth every penny.
What really bothered me, was that when I asked Ethan about the cost later after he had already told the guy that we wanted the ring, he just said, “Don’t worry about it man, we’ll square up when we work out the financing for the bar.” I was about to press him on it when Janie walked in the room. I had no idea about the cost of diamonds and platinum, but I sure as hell knew what a brand-new Range Rover cost. I just couldn’t help but think about how far nearly $100,000 would go towards opening the bar.
I was also feeling a little frustrated that we hadn’t made more progress on the bar. Ethan was supposed to oversee scouting locations and neither Janie or I could start on our parts of the business plan until we had options. Every time I asked him about it, he had told me he was working on it. I caught him the other day scrolling through real estate listings on his lap top and I went over to look and he closed out the window like he was looking at porn. He had also disappeared a few times and neither Janie nor I knew where he went.
By the time we pulled up to the restaurant where I was meeting my parents for breakfast, I realized how stupid I was. I trusted Ethan completely. I was just out of sorts, that was all it was. I knew the day would be rough. I had insisted that my parents and I meet at a different restaurant than the one where Janie and Ethan would be meeting their parents and ‘announcing their engagement.’ Janie and Ethan had hated it, but I convinced them that it would be weird for me and my family to be there. I really believed that, but also, I just didn’t want to be there for the ‘good news.’ I wasn’t sure how I would react.
When Ethan pulled in front of the restaurant, I wanted to lean up front and kiss them goodbye. But I suddenly realized that we were on a busy street in the middle of town and I couldn’t take the chance that someone would see me kiss Ethan so I just squeezed both of their shoulders and said, “Good luck, fucktards.” I was trying to add levity to the situation. I knew they both hated what they were about to have to do. They both grabbed my hands and squeezed and held on for a long time. I finally managed to pull my hands away and I walked into the restaurant with an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
The day got worse from there. My father lectured me about considering a more ‘conventional career’ other than becoming a ‘bar keep.’ My mother told me she wished I would ‘settle down like Ethan and Janie.’
After graduation, I had the pleasure of having Janie’s mother ask me to ‘step out’ of the picture, so she could take one of just Janie and Ethan. I didn’t really care, but I could tell it killed Janie. She growled at her mother, “Mom, that’s so rude, Ethan and I want Jake in the picture.” I reached down and squeezed Janie’s hand and whispered. “It’s okay Janiebug, just do it.” I watched her eyes water up. The same sort of thing happened when Ethan’s dad asked about where I would be living now that Janie and Ethan were engaged. I listened as friend after friend complimented Ethan on Janie’s ring and congratulated the ‘perfect couple.’ Each comment felt like a punch in the gut.
I was waiting by Ethan’s new SUV for them to finish up with the families, so we could get the hell out of there. It was so much harder than I thought it would be. I just kept reminding myself why I was doing it. It was the only way to secure a future for us. Our love was the only thing that mattered. I gave myself a pep talk as I waited for them. ‘The engagement’ is new. It won’t always be like this. Everything will be fine when we get back to the apartment.
Chapter Twelve
Ethan
I was holding Janie’s hand as we walked towards the car. As soon as Janie saw Jake standing by it, she took off running towards him. I watched her wrap him up in a hug and press her lips against his in a hungry kiss. He gently pulled her off him and chuckled, “Janiebug, you can’t do that here.” I wanted to do the same thing she did. It broke my heart.
I walked up behind Janie and put my hand on her back. I watched her cheeks turn red. “I don’t give a fuck!” She practically screamed, as she opened the car door, got in and slammed it closed. I didn’t blame her. The whole day was a shit show. It all felt wrong. I just wanted to get them home and tell them everything.
The car was completely quiet as we drove down the road. All the sudden, Janie blurted out, “I don’t want to get married.” My heart stopped. I was terrified she was about to end everything between us.
I pulled the car over and before I could get it into park, Jake was between us rubbing Janie’s arm. His voice was gentle. “Janiebug. I’m not gonna lie, today kind of sucked. But I’m pretty sure it was worse for you guys than it was for me and it’s not always going to be like this. It’s only temporary. You can’t give up on us Janie. You just can’t.” I watched as a tear slipped out of the corner of his eye.
She turned to look at him and brushed it away with her thumb, “Oh god Jake, I’m not giving up on us. I just don’t want the wedding. I just can’t do it. There’s no way I’m going to stand up there unless you’re standing there with us and we’re all saying our vows together.”
I felt the air rush back into my lungs and felt relieved. “Janie, I’m so glad you feel that way, I don’t know if I could do it either.”
She wiped the tears from under her eyes. Jake rubbed her arm again. “I want you to have the wedding you always wanted.”
She shook her head. “I don’t care about a wedding. I just want to marry both of you. Well, I want a dress, white peonies, and a cake. Yeah. I want a cake. But that’s all.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “We can give you all those things Janiebug.”
She looked back and forth between us. “Let’s just wait till we get out to California one day, we can find someone who will perform a ceremony for the three of us. I don’t care if it’s legal or not. We don’t need a piece of paper to show who we are to each other.”
I reached over and touched her cheek. “I love that idea Janiebug.” I turned the car back on. “But we still have to get legally married. You and I can just apply for the marriage license, but the ceremony will be for all three of us.”
She grabbed my arm. “No. Why? I don’t want to do that. No.”
I stopped and looked at her. “Janie, one of you has to legally marry me. It can be Jake if you don’t want to do it.”
“Not that I care,” Jake said, “but why?”
I let out a breath, “I met with my estate lawyer this week.”
Jake quipped, “Since when do you have an estate lawyer?”
“Since I inherited some money from my grandparents.”
Janie looked at me with a confused expression on her face. “I don’t understand Ethan.”
I looked at them both. “I changed my will this week to make you both the beneficiaries. I explained our situation to him and he said that it would be best if Janie and I were legally married to prevent any of my family members from contesting the will. He said it would be virtually impossible if one of my beneficiaries is a spouse. I don’t have any aunts or uncles or cousins, both of my parents were only children. But I have a shit ton of second and third cousins. I just don’t trust that they wouldn’t come out of the wood work if something were to happen to me.”
I watched Jake rub his face. “Okay I have so many questions. First, why the fuck do you have a will? You’re twenty-five years old.”
>
I watched Janie gasp. “Oh god Ethan, are you—”
I interrupted her laughing, “No Janie. I’m not dying. I’m perfectly healthy. It’s just a lot of money. It’s too much to risk.”
Jake snapped, “Just exactly how much fucking money do you have Ethan?”
“God, I didn’t want to do it like this. I wanted to be home at the apartment. I wanted to tell you guys the surprise and then explain everything else. I have champagne ready. But the truth is, I don’t know exactly how much, it fluctuates with the market. The last statements I got added up to something like 953.”
Janie whispered, “Holy shit, Ethan, you have almost a million dollars?”
I wiped my forehead. I hated this. I didn’t want to do it this way. I cleared my throat. “Almost a billion, not a million.”
I looked in the rearview mirror at Jake. He was rubbing his hands over his face. “Let me get this straight Ethan. You are telling us you have $953 million dollars? Is this some sort of joke?”
“Give or take, yeah. And no, it’s not a joke.”
I glanced at Janie and she looked like she was in shock and then I looked back at Jake. His face was red and his jaw was clenched, he looked pissed. “How could I not know this E? Christ, we’ve been best friends since we were twelve.”
I sighed, “Look Jake, I never knew. I didn’t know. It wasn’t until my Grandmother on my Dad’s side passed away our senior year, that I found out. I inherited a lot then. But the bulk of it came when my Grandfather on my mother’s side died a few years ago. My grandparents lived modestly. I never knew.”
Janie finally looked at me. “How? I mean, it’s so much. Where did it come from?”
“My Dad’s father owned a bunch of coal mines. My Mom’s father owned a bunch of tobacco farms and a large tobacco company that he sold before I was born. I was always kind of repulsed by the way they made their money. But neither of them spent it and they invested well and it just grew. Both of my parents had trust funds when they got married, but my Dad always worked, so they didn’t really touch any of it. They have more money than they need to live comfortably for the rest of their lives. So, I guess my grandparents decided to leave it all to me, probably for estate tax purposes.”
I looked back at Jake. He wouldn’t look up at me. It made me sick to my stomach for them to think I was intentionally hiding something from them. “Look, I was embarrassed, okay? It was so much. I was just starting college. I just wanted to be like everyone else. My parents just told me to forget I had it and not tell anyone. I guess they didn’t want people to try to take advantage. I don’t know.”
Now Jake just looked hurt. “You thought Janie and I would try to take advantage of you? We were your best friends.”
Jesus, this wasn’t going anything like I expected. “No Jake. Fuck! No. I never thought that. I just wanted to be like you guys. I wanted to go to college and live in a shitty little apartment. I didn’t want to buy a mansion or an airplane. I didn’t want to worry about why people were being friends with me. But before you say anything, I don’t mean you or Janie. I mean everyone else. It’s hard to explain. I know it seems crazy. But I wasn’t hiding it from you guys because I didn’t trust you. It was because, I didn’t want it to change anything between us. Does that make any sense?”
We sat quietly for a second. Then I heard Janie’s soft voice. “You got into Harvard.”
I looked over at her. “What?”
“You got into Harvard. All three of us applied to their MBA program. You got in. Jake and I didn’t get accepted.”
I cleared my throat. “Janie what are you talking about?”
She looked at me with tears in her eyes. “You told us your parents said it was too expensive, that’s why you couldn’t go.”
I shook my head. “I know. I just didn’t want to leave you guys. I couldn’t.”
She was smiling and wiping the tears from her eyes. “I don’t know why you think we’d care about how much money you have or don’t have, but you shouldn’t have given up an opportunity like that for us.”
I grinned at her, “I didn’t give it for you guys. I gave it up for me.”
Jake leaned forward in his seat, “We’re getting off point. This is crazy E. I just can’t believe there’s this whole part of your life that we didn’t know about.” He let out a derisive laugh, “Do you really think Janie or I would treat you differently because you inherited some money?”
I cleared my throat, “I know. It seems stupid now. But I was eighteen when I found out. I was getting ready to go to college. I wanted to blend in, not stand out. Honestly, I didn’t even think about it almost ninety-nine percent of the time. There was never really a reason to tell you guys until...” I looked back at Jake, whose hands were over his face. “Tell me we’re good, man. I gotta know everything’s good between us.” I felt my eyes tearing up. I turned around in my seat looking back at Jake. I reached my hand between the seats and put it on his knee.
He put his hand over mine and looked up at me. “We’re good man. I guess I’m still trying to wrap my head around it.”
I shook my head and glanced back and forth between them. “I’m really sorry guys. I didn’t mean to spring it on you like this, in the car, pulled over in some parking lot. I really was going to explain it all when we got home. I knew that today would be hard for us. I bought a bottle of champagne. I had this whole surprise planned.” I huffed. “I didn’t mean for it to go like this.”
Janie giggled, “So what did you have planned? You were going to pop the cork and say, “Hey I’m a billionaire, Surprise!”
I looked at her and rolled my eyes, “That isn’t the surprise and I’m not a billionaire.”
Janie snorted, “Close enough. Tell us your surprise. I’m sorry we ruined it for you.”
“The surprise is that I booked us plane tickets. We fly out to San Francisco on Monday. I made an appointment with a realtor to look at a house. It looks awesome online and Jake, it has a big-ass shower—four, actually.” I grinned at him through the rearview mirror. His face looked white. “But if you guys don’t like it, she’s prepared to show us others. I thought while we’re there, we could start scouting locations for the bar. I booked a return flight for the following Monday. But if we all agree, we can just stay. I’ll have our things shipped out. That’s the surprise. I want to start our lives now. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want us to have to pretend anymore.”
I looked over at Janie and she had her hand over her mouth with tears in her eyes. She whispered, “Ethan. Oh my god, you’re giving us everything. I don’t know what to say.”
I reached over and touched her face, “You guys don’t seem to get that you are my everything. I’m not giving anything. I’m taking.”
I turned around to look at Jake. He was quiet. “Jake?”
“Jesus Ethan, it’s just a lot. I don’t know how I feel about you spending all that money. And the bar? Why do you even want to do it? You don’t ever have to work. And I don’t know, I feel like I need to contribute somehow and you’re talking about millions of dollars between buying a house and opening a bar. I can’t even—I mean I don’t even know how I could make a dent.”
I knew it was a pride thing for him. That’s part of why I never told him about the money. He’d feel weird every time I bought him so much as a beer. But things were different now and I wasn’t gonna let his pride get in the way of our happiness. “Jake, seriously? First, yes, I want to open the bar. I want to work. What do you think I’m gonna do, sit around playing Xbox for the rest of my life? I didn’t just spend six years in college for nothing. I want to be rich because I’ve been successful, because of something I’ve accomplished, not because I inherited some money. Second, you were willing to pour every last dollar you have saved for all these years into the bar, so that we could have our future. Money that you worked your ass off earning tending bar and landscaping. You were willing to play the role of some fuck-up who never grew up for how many years Jake? Just
so Janie and I would be happy? I get it’s a lot of money, man. But I have it. I didn’t earn it. We’ve made a commitment to spend the rest of our lives together. As far as I’m concerned, the money is ours now, not just mine. And don’t even try to tell me for one fucking second, that you wouldn’t do the same thing if the situation were reversed. Don’t be a fucktard. I swear if you—”
Jake interrupted me laughing, “Okay, okay man, chill out. I get it. You’re right.” He scooted up on the back seat and leaned between the seats and grinned as he looked back and forth between us, “Let’s go home and celebrate. I want some of that champagne.” He scooted back in his seat and chuckled as I started the car and drove towards the apartment.
Janie laughed. “I can’t believe this Ethan. We’re going to California. You’re a frigging billionaire. The whole thing is ridiculous.”
Jake chuckled, “I don’t know Janiebug. I think I’m starting to get used to the idea. What kind of champagne did you buy E? You know I can’t drink the cheap stuff. Oh, and did you buy us first class tickets for the flight? You know I need my leg room.”
I shook my head and laughed. “Shut up fucktard.”
Janie giggled, “Oh my god Ethan, now that you’re a billionaire, are you gonna go all ‘Christian Grey’ on us and start tying us up with your silk ties and stuff?”
Jake poked his head between the seats. “I’m totally not opposed to that.”
As soon as the teasing started, I knew everything would be fine. We were going to be okay and we were going to get our forever. But that didn’t stop me from playing along. “Really? And you guys wonder why I never told you?”
Janie giggled, “You love us Ethan.”
I felt a lump in my throat. “Yeah. I do.”
THE END.
Epilogue
Janie
Seven years later…
I stood in our kitchen staring through the glass door leading out onto the back porch. I couldn’t help but smile watching Jake run around the yard with a beach ball while six toddlers chased him laughing their heads off. It was John’s third birthday. Jake insisted that we have a big blow out, complete with a moon bounce and pony rides. But as usual, he seemed to be the main attraction.